Finally! After an exciting summer with Germany winning the World Cup in Brazil and a weeks of transfer shenanigans, the penultimate week of August would see a welcome return of Bundesliga action. FC Bayern’s opening fixture would pit them against 2008/09 champions VfL Wolfsburg, genuine title challengers who had brought in a number of new signings over the summer.
Still missing a number of key players including World Cup hero Bastian Schweinsteiger and French winger Franck Ribéry as well as the suspended Jérôme Boateng, there would be a somewhat unfamiliar look about Bayern’s starting lineup. New signings Juan Bernat and Robert Lewandowski would both make their Bundesliga debuts, while teenager Guanluca Gaudino – son of former VfB Stuttgart legend Maurizio – would also make the starting lineup. Perhaps the most welcomed name in the starting eleven however would be defender Holger Badstuber, back in Bundesliga action after more than a year out through injury.
In front of a crowd of just over seventy-one thousand in the newly-expanded Allianz Arena the game would start somewhat cagily, but Bayern would soon start to control the possession and with it the flow of the game. Wolves’ ‘keeper Max Grün would make early saves from both Lewandowski and Thomas Müller, and Bayern would start to turn the screw as the game approached the thirty-minute mark.
Lewandowski would have the ball in the back of the net only to see the offside flag, but the pressure would eventually tell as Arjen Robben beat former FCB man Luiz Gustavo to square the ball for Müller who guided it past Grün to notch up Bayern’s first goal of the new season.
For all of the big names in their side Wolfsburg would look lifeless and lost for ideas, and the second half had barely begun when Bayern hit their second. Seizing on an error in midfield the energetic Robben would charge into the opposition half, exchanging passes with both Müller and Lewandowski before hitting the target with aplomb. It looked all over bar the shouting.
The second goal should have settled things down for Pep Guardiola’s team, but it would simply serve as a catalyst for the visitors to finally live up to the pre-season hype. Within five minutes Wolfsburg’s other former FCB man Ivica Olic had halved the deficit with a well-struck effort, and almost from nowhere the men in white and green looked a genuine threat. As the game opened up Grün would deny Philipp Lahm, Lewandowski and David Alaba, while at the other end Bayern were unlucky not to concede an equaliser when Wolfsburg substitute Junior Malanda produced a miss of the season candidate from close range.
Wolfsburg’s audacity simply prompted Bayern into shifting up another gear, and things should have been wrapped up when Rode’s well-executed shot beat Grün, only for the officials to wrongly flag Müller for offside. Müller would have another opportunity right at the death and Robben would hit the bar, and when the final whistle blew there would be no doubt that it has been a hard-fought encounter – with Bayern the deserved winners.
Bundesliga Week 1
Allianz Arena, München, 22.08.2014
FC Bayern 2:1 (1:0) VfL Wolfsburg
Müller 37., Robben 47. / Olic 52.
FC Bayern: Neuer – Lahm (c), Dante, Badstuber, Bernat – Gaudino (90. Højbjerg), Alaba – Robben, Müller, Götze (62. Shaqiri) – Lewandowski (79. Rode)
Wolfsburg: Grün – Jung, Naldo (c), Knoche, Rodriguez – Guilavogui, Luiz Gustavo (72. Junior Malanda) – Vieirinha (60. Caligiuri), Hunt (46. Arnold), De Bruyne – Olic
Yellow Cards: – / Luiz Gustavo, Arnold